Lismore Castle Gardens and Lismore Castle Arts
About
The castle is a private house and you will not get inside it, but the seven acres of gardens inside its walls are open for the season, and they come with a contemporary art gallery in the west wing. The upper garden was laid out by Richard Boyle, the 1st Earl of Cork, in about 1605, and most of its walls and terraces are still where he put them; it is half ornamental borders and half kitchen garden, growing vegetables, fruit and flowers for the house. You enter the lower garden through the Riding House. That half was made mostly in the nineteenth century for the 6th Duke of Devonshire, with an old yew avenue at its heart that is older than the garden around it. Sculpture has been going into the gardens since 1999, including work by Antony Gormley and Eilís O'Connell. Lismore Castle Arts, the not-for-profit gallery founded in 2005, runs its main exhibition in the castle and smaller shows at St Carthage Hall on Chapel Street and at The Mill on the road out to Ballysaggartmore; both of those are free and open Friday to Sunday afternoons during exhibitions. In 2026 the gardens open daily from 13 March to 25 October, 11am to 6pm, last entry 5pm.
Photos
Highlights
- ✓Upper garden walls and terraces from about 1605
- ✓Yew avenue in the lower garden, older than the garden itself
- ✓Sculpture by Antony Gormley and Eilís O'Connell
- ✓Contemporary exhibitions in the castle's west wing
- ✓Gallery Café beside the gallery
Tips
- →The castle itself is a private residence and is not open to visitors; the only way to see the rooms is the virtual tour in the old courthouse on Main Street.
- →Book a timed ticket on the Lismore Castle Arts site in summer; family tickets cover two adults and three children under 16.
- →St Carthage Hall and The Mill are free and open Friday to Sunday, 12pm to 5pm, during exhibitions.
- →Closed from late October to mid-March.